The workes of that famous chirurgion Ambrose Parey translated out of Latin and compared with the French. by Tho: Johnson. Whereunto are added three tractates our of Adrianus Spigelius of the veines, arteries, & nerves, with large figures. Also a table of the bookes and chapters.

CHAP. XXXIV. How to discern a true conception from a false conception or Mola,

* 1.1WHen the Mola is inclosed in the womb, the same things appear as in the true and law∣ful conception. But the more proper signes of the Mola are these: there is a certain pricking pain, which at the beginning troubleth the belly as if it were the cholick; the belly will swell sooner then it woul if it were the true issue, and will be distended with great har••ness, and is more difficult and troublesome to carry, because it is contrary to nature, and void of soule or life. Presently after the conception the duggs swell and puff up, but shortly they fall and become lank and lax; for nature sendeth milk thither in vain, because there is no issue in the womb that may spend the same. The Mola will move before the third moneth, although it be obscurely,* 1.2 but the true conception will not: but this motion of the Mola is not of the intel∣lectual soul, but of the faculty of the womb, and of the spirit of the seed dispersed through the substance of the Mola; for it is nourished and increaseth after the manner of plants, but not by reason of a soul or spi••i•• sent from above, as the infant doth. Moreover, that motion that the infant hath in its due and appointed time,* 1.3 differeth much from the motion of the Mola; for the childe is moved to the right side, to the left side, and to every side gently, but the Mola, by rea∣son of its heaviness, is fixed, and rowleth in manner of a stone, carried by the weight thereof un∣to what side soever the woman declineth her self. The woman that hath a Mola in her womb, doth daily wax leaner and leaner in all her members, but especially in her leggs, although not∣withstanding towards night they will swel, so that she will be very slow or heavy in going, the natural heat forsaking the parts remote from the heart by little and little: and moreover, her belly swells,* 1.4 by reason that the menstrual matter resteth about those places, and is not consumed in the nourishment of the Mola; she is swolln as if she had the dropsie, but that it is harder, and doth not rise again when it is pressed with the fingers. The navel doth not stand out as it will do when the true issue is contained in the womb, neither do the courses flow as they do som∣times in the true conception; but sometimes great fluxes happen, which ease the weight of the belly. In many when the Mola doth cleave not very fast, it falleth away within three or four moneths, being not as yet come unto its just bigness; and many times it cleaveth to the sides of the womb and Cotyledons very firmly, so that some women carry it in their wombs five or six years, and some as long as they live.

The wife of Cuiliam R••g••r Pewterer, dwelling in St. Victors street, bore a Mola in her womb sev••nteen years,* 1.5 who being of the age of fifty years, died; and I having opened her found the body of her womb to be almost loosed, and not tied or bound by its accustomed ligatures, but as it were hanging only by the neck, and furthermore cleaving to the Kall adjoyning to it, having but only one testicle, and that on the right side, and that somewhat broader and looser then usual:

the horns were not to be seen except it were on that side, the vessels were on the neck only, and there very manifest and puffed up, it was as big as a mans head. When I had taken it out of her body, I brought it home unto my house, that at my leasure I might find out what was contained in it so long; therefore on a certain day, calling together the chief Physicians of Paris, as Massilaeus, Alexis, Vig••r de S. Pont. Feure, Br••v••t, Violais, Grealmus, R••vin, Marescotius, Milotus, Hautin, Riolan, Lusson; and Surgeons, as Brun, Ceinter••l, Guillemeau; all these being present, I opened the womb,* 1.6 and I found it in all the body thereof, and in the proper tunicle, so schirrhous, and so hard, that I could hardly cut or make a knife to enter it: the body thereof was three fingers thick. In the midst of the capacity thereof I found a lump of flesh as big as both my fists, like unto a Cows ud∣der, cleaving to the sides of the womb, but in a certain place, of a very thick, unequal and cloddish substance, with many bodies therein, even as are commonly found in Wens and Gristles, dispersed through it as if it were bones. The judgment of all that were present was, that this great tumor at the first was a Mola, which in process of time degenerated into a schirrous body, together with the proper substance of the womb. Moreover, in the middle of the neck of the womb, we found a tumor as big as a Turkies egg, of substance hard, cartilaginous and bony, filling all the whole neck, but especially the inward orifice of the womb, which the common people of France do call the Garland, so that by that passage nothing could go out, or enter into the womb: all that tumor weighed nine pounds and two ounces, which I, by reason of the novelty of the thing, keep in my closet, and here I have described it.

[illustration]

The external form and description of the fore-named womb.

• A. Sheweth the body of the womb.
• B. The testicle.
• C. The neck of the womb, wherein that little tumor was contained.
• D. Sheweth the end of the neck of the womb that was plucked in sunder, and also the vessels where∣by it drew the nutriment unto it.
• E. Sheweth the band.
• FFF. The vessels dispersed thorow the womb.

[illustration]

The description of the womb being open, and shewing the Mola contained therein.

• A. A. Shew the external and su∣perficial part of the womb.
• B.B.B.B. Shew the thickness of the body, or proper substance of the womb.
• C. Sheweth the Mola.
• D. D. Shew that concavity where∣in the Mola was contained, or inclosed in the womb.

As long as the woman carryed this Mola in her womb, she felt most sharp pain in her belly; the region of her belly was marvellous hard, distended and large, as if it were a woman that had many children at once in her womb; so that many Physicians, when the time of childe-birth was past, supposed that swelling of the belly to come of the Dropsie, and assayed to cure it as they would the Dropsie; but for all the medicines they could use, the belly became never the lesser. Often∣times the urine was stopped for the space of three dayes, and then the making of urine was very painful unto her, and many times also her excrements were stopped for the space of a week, by reason that the guts were pressed by the weight of the Mola. At certain seasons, as every third moneth, there came exceeding great fluxes; the matter thereof could not be carryed through the capacity of the womb, as we said before, because it was exactly shut and stopped, but through the vessels by which Virgins, and also certain other women great with child ev••c••ate their menstrual matter.* 1.7 If the Mola be expelled or cast out in the first or second moneth, as many times it so happe∣neth, it is called of women an unprofitable or false conception. Sometimes there are found in one womb two or three moles separated one from another, and sometimes bound or tyed to the sound and perfect infant: As it happened in the wife of V••ll••riola the Physician, which was delivered of a Mola which she had carryed in her womb twelve moneths,* 1.8 annexed with a child of four months old, which had deprived the Infant of its room and nutriment. For it is alwayes to be certainly supposed, that the Mola, as a cruel beast, by its society, and keeping from its nutriment and place, kils the infant that is joyned unto it.

I remember once I opened the body of a dead woman, which had a Mola in her womb, as big as a Goose-egg, which when nature had assayed by many vain endeavors to cast out, remained not∣withstanding, and at length putrified, and therewith infected the whole womb, whereof she died. There be some which judging themselves great with childe, do about the ninth or tenth moneth expel no other thing but sounding blasts of winde; whereby the womb suddenly falling down, and waxing more slender, they are said in a mockery to have been delivered of a fart. To conclude, whatso••ver resembles being with childe, if it be not excluded at the due and lawful time of child-birth by its own accord, or by the strength of nature, then must it be expelled by art.

Notes

• * 1.1

  The signes of a mola inclo∣sed in the womb.
• * 1.2

  By what fa∣cultie the womb mo∣veth.
• * 1.3

  How the mo∣tion of the Mola differeth from the motion of the infant in the womb.
• * 1.4

  The mola doth turn to each side of the womb▪ a•• the 〈◊〉〈◊〉 on o•• the body is.
• * 1.5

  A history.
• * 1.6

  The descripti∣on of a Mola carried seven∣teen yeers in the womb.
• * 1.7

  A vain or un∣profitable con∣ception.
• * 1.8

  The Mola kills the in∣fant in the womb, when it is fastened unto it.